Monotasking: How to Focus Your Mind, Be More Productive, and Improve Your Brain Health

By Staffan Nöteberg

Tips and tricks to cut down your to-do list and avoid procrastination

Are you prone to delaying all those projects you need to complete? Is that checklist getting just a little too daunting? Don’t get sucked into the spiral of procrastination! Start checking off that to-do list with Monotasking! In this simple, easy-to-follow book, author Staffan Nöteberg shares his effective and powerful monotasking method to help you strengthen your self-control and improve your focus on those daily tasks.

No more delaying the inevitable. Sure, you’d rather be reading that new book or watching the game, but those things need to get done! And you know you’ll have a much better time if you don’t have your to-do list looming over you! In just six chapters, you will be up and eagerly completing all those chores—even the ones that you hate! These chapters detail easy steps to improving your “get up and go” and clearing off that chore list. They include:

• Cut to-do tasks
• Focus on one thing
• Never delay
• Work step-by-step
• Simplify collaboration
• Recharge your creativity

With clear, step-by-step instructions and advice, you’ll have that to-do list checked off in no time. Also, not only will this guide help you cut down on your to-do list, but the lessons you learn will help improve your focus, which leads to better brain health and a happier life. Procrastination will be a thing of the past! You’ll be enjoying your free time (and your healthier brain) faster than you can say Monotasking!

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Racehorse
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781631585494

Book preview

Raise your head to see the way, lower your head to do the job.

~ Chinese idiom

Copyright © 2019 by Staffan Nöteberg.

First Skyhorse Publishing edition, 2020.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Racehorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [e-mail].

Racehorse Publishing™ is a pending trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020930865

Interior artwork by Staffan Nöteberg

Cover design by Kai Texel

Cover artwork credit: Getty Images

Print ISBN: 978-1-63158-548-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63158-549-4

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction: The Five Axioms of Monotasking

Chapter 1: Monotasking in a Nutshell

Chapter 2: Cut Down on Tasks to Do

Chapter 3: Focus on One Task Now

Chapter 4: Never Procrastinate

Chapter 5: Progress Incrementally

Chapter 6: Simplify Cooperation

Chapter 7: Recharge Creative Thinking

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Author Biography

Index

Endnotes

PREFACE

PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY SYSTEMS HELP us to manage our personal time in the most efficient, productive, and effective way. However, systems that are too complicated, too rigid, or too time consuming will sooner or later be rejected—no matter how much potential they have to help us.

Rigid personal productivity systems are often developed by engineers who normally program computers. Even though they try to specify in detail how we should act in every possible scenario, they won’t be able to describe most situations. The world is too complex for rule-based systems. A better approach is to replace the rules with good practices. Then human intuition can come to the rescue.

Complicated personal productivity systems are created by personal productivity gurus. They love to have a multitude of lists, protocols, and tools. But if inventing personal productivity systems isn’t your profession, then you’ll want an easy system that can be implemented promptly and can rapidly result in productive habits.

Time-consuming personal productivity systems are usually implemented in your organization by management consultants. They persuade top management that employees are lazy and accordingly must constantly report upwards. These systems tend to consume more resources than they free up.

Monotasking is a powerful system based on switching between prioritizing and focusing. It’s flexible, easy to learn, and minimally time consuming. However, it is still very capable—and fun. It also embraces the ability to evolve. You can start with this textbook version and then adapt it to your circumstances when you find that you would benefit from that.

This book is organized in seven chapters. The first provides an overview of the monotasking method, and the remaining chapters cover the six areas in which it is most important to achieve success in order to be productive:

•Cut down on tasks to do

•Focus on one task now

•Never procrastinate

•Progress incrementally

•Simplify cooperation

•Recharge creative thinking

The chapters are independent and can be read in whatever order you like. However, if you want to succeed with the monotasking method, you should understand all of them. My recommendation is to use the panorama cue while reading this book. It will give you a good idea of how you want to customize monotasking to your special circumstances.

I hope you’ll enjoy the book and benefit from monotasking!

// Staffan

INTRODUCTION

THE FIVE AXIOMS OF MONOTASKING

LITTLE DID THE YOUNG and curious psychology researcher Bluma Zeigarnik know that her seemingly trivial observation in a café would change the game of personal productivity. This was back in the 1920s, but today we are still struggling with how to best use her findings in the modern environment of office work.

Bluma was fascinated by a waiter’s ability to remember what everyone had ordered when someone called for the bill. It didn’t matter that Bluma’s friends had spent hours in the café, ordering multiple times. The waiter successfully recalled everything.

Then, half an hour after paying, they asked the waiter to rewrite the check. He couldn’t. The surprising answer was, I can’t recall what you ordered, since you’ve paid the bill. Until the order was paid, it was available in detail in the waiter’s memory. After that, it was forgotten.¹

Could Bluma confirm her theory in a scientific experiment? She let 164 people know that they would perform about twenty tasks. What she didn’t tell them was that half of the tasks would be interrupted before they could be completed. The tasks were interrupted in such a way that no one could suspect that the interruptions were a deliberate part of the experiment. Some tasks were manual work, such as constructing a box of cardboard or making clay figures. Others were mental problems, such as puzzles and arithmetic. Following the last task, participants were asked to recall the tasks they had worked on. Bluma’s initial hypothesis from the café was proven correct. Approximately twice as many of the unfinished tasks were remembered compared to the completed ones.²

The fact that we remember unfinished or incomplete tasks better than the completed tasks usually goes under the name Zeigarnik effect. In order to remember it better, I prefer to call it the waiter effect. As we’ll see later in this book, it can cause us problems. But we can also use it to our advantage. For example, leaving the office in the middle of a task helps you get started easily the next morning, eliminating some of that before-lunch procrastination. This leads us to the first axiom:

•Axiom #1: Started tasks will unconditionally demand space in our daily thinking until we either complete them or delete them.

Every time we switch from one task to another, our brain’s executive control does two things. First, it activates the goal shifting: I did this, now I’ll do that. Second, it creates the context for the new task. The latter is called rule activation.

Switching tasks consumes time. One switch can take as little as a tenth of a second, but during a day of constant switching, it might consume a significant part of your productive time. While looking productive, you’re actually wasting a good amount of time between tasks.³

Task switching also induces errors. Clearing the working memory and reloading the rules of the current task over and over isn’t the best foundation for problem solving. The more complex your task, the more errors will arise because of task switching.

Repeated task switching also reduces what is popularly known as emotional intelligence, or EQ. The switching leads to anxiety, which in turn raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the brain. This may contribute to aggressive and impulsive behavior.

Finally, task switching is energy intensive. It burns up oxygenated glucose in the brain. Unfortunately, that is exactly the fuel we need to stay on a task. Task switching thus initiates a vicious cycle, increasing the risk of even more task switching. Depleting these resources also makes us feel exhausted, and even disoriented, quite quickly.⁴ Here’s the second axiom:

•Axiom #2: Task switching not only slows us down but also inevitably depletes our brain energy.

In our modern society, many things are changing all the time. The task that used to be the most important may no longer be so. It might be that the task requires much more time than we originally predicted, or you might have discovered or been given another new and even more important task. At least once an hour, we should ask ourselves Lakein’s question: What’s the best use of my time right now? ⁵

Even though prioritizing tasks demands significant energy from the brain, we must nevertheless do it often. By limiting the options to only those few which can reasonably be most important, we make it easier for the brain. The monotasking method provides many simple and effective practices and tools, such as the panorama session and the short list, for doing this. It conserves available brain energy and puts it to better use.

Everyone has more tasks on their mental list than they’ll have time to perform. Prioritizing is about doing the first things first. It’s not about prioritizing based on urgency or how long the task has been waiting for your attention. Neither is it following outdated plans.

Transparency is critical when our planning is this dynamic. Stakeholders are waiting for results. They have the right to be informed frequently about whether we intend to carry out this task now or later or not at all. The third axiom thus regards our responsibility:

•Axiom #3: We are responsible for prioritizing the number one most important task right now, as we can always come up with an almost infinite number of valuable tasks to work on.

Brief breaks every hour help us to focus. Our attention span is limited. If we work on the same task for several hours without a break, our minds start to wander. Breaks will also set our muscles in motion. Eight hours of sedentary work every day isn’t good for anyone.⁶ In addition when we disconnect from our task during breaks, we’ll get new insights—that’s creative thinking. Finally, breaks are a natural point in time for eventually re-prioritizing which task is currently the most important one.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that more than 100,000 people are killed or injured in the United States in sleep- or drowsiness-related traffic crashes every year.⁷ There’s consensus among scientific researchers that lack of sleep and low sleep quality increases the number of errors we make daily in the office reducing our productivity. In addition, when we forgo the important REM stage of sleep, we miss opportunities to learn by experience. There are many resources out there for tips and methods for improving your sleep.

Physical exercise is one proven method of improving sleep.⁸ Exercising also increases our health and reduces the risk of age-related cognitive decline.⁹ Creative thinking increases when we exercise.¹⁰ Something as simple as having a discussion meeting during a walk instead of in a conference room can do wonders for generating new approaches.¹¹ We are also able to think better when our brains are oxygenated.

Brain energy isn’t only affected by sleep and exercising. What we put in our mouth makes a difference. Almost everything we eat is converted into glucose, which, as mentioned above, is the brain’s fuel. Working on an empty stomach lowers productivity. Pasta, bread, and soft drinks all release glucose rapidly, but this leads to quick bursts of energy followed by steep declines. High-fat foods consumed in combination with complex carbs, like whole grains, provide more sustained energy that won’t result in the blood sugar spikes and drops that can negatively affect the brain. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables can positively affect our mood, making us happier.¹² A nourishing and diverse diet is thus fundamental for productivity in the short term as well as in the long term. All these things together form the fourth axiom:

•Axiom #4: Taking breaks, sleeping well, exercising, and eating healthy are mandatory investments, if we want to maintain a sustainable pace every day.

As modern office workers, we find ourselves in the midst of a complex system undergoing constant change. The market for the services our employer offers changes. Our mission changes. Our individual roles and responsibilities change. We learn new things and become both more skilled and effective. Colleagues quit and others are hired, triggering new group dynamics in our team.

There are no methods that work best for everyone. We are all different. We think differently. We are motivated by different things. Despite this, we can learn from each other and experiment with methods that others have found useful.

Peter Drucker said in 1954 that the only valid definition of a business purpose is to create a customer.¹³ As individuals, we need to ask ourselves why we are here. How can we help our employer solve our customers’ problems? To be faster and more efficient is not enough—we also need to be more effective.

Finally, it can be fun to improve our daily practices. Mastery is one of the most powerful human drives.¹⁴ When we feel like we’re growing and become more proficient in what we do, we become more committed to our work and more satisfied with the outcomes.

We must challenge the status quo on a daily basis. Thus, the final axiom:

•Axiom #5: We must adapt our method to our own circumstances individually, gradually, and based on our recent personal experiences. There is no one-size-fits-all method.

To recap, these are the five axioms: (1)